A+* . . .

During the course of my average day, I have the opportunity to observe a mother interact with her school-age children. Aside from everything else I hear and see and notice, I also note that the mother does a lot of her children's homework assignments and projects. Book reports, dioramas, creative things, charts, research, drawings, printouts, collages, etc. This mother is often on the internet looking up bugs, or at home typing out reports, or running off to the store to purchase items which she will use to cobble together her children's assignments.

Perhaps I ask too much of today's children, but ... is this not wrong?

Who am I to say anything? I don't have children, I have no idea what kids these days go through in their daily academic lives, I don't know how much homework they have or how busy they are with other things in their pre-adolescent little lives. I know you can't drive yourself to the store if you are, like, eleven years old. I know that usage of the internet by young children should be heavily regulated, I know that it could take a little kid a long time to research something if he or she doesn't know where to look (although kids don't really use BOOKS anymore, and GOOGLE makes everything so super-speedy anyway).

But is it really so awful to say to a kid, "Buckle down and do your own damn work"?

(Of course, now everyone has free reign to criticize how I will raise my children. Sigh.)